


Shovels and Silence

by PepperCat



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Jealousy, M/M, Shovel Talk, filthy names for drinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 05:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10691031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperCat/pseuds/PepperCat
Summary: Axel and Hartley are a thing. Some people are concerned.





	Shovels and Silence

### 5 times someone worried about how Axel was treating Hartley

#### Thea

"You know one of his exes hit him?"

"I figured," Axel says. "Everyone's got one, right?"

Thea considers him for a second and then comes back to what she was saying. Axel likes her. There's something about her that reminds him a little bit of Lisa, and a little bit of Piper when he loses it.

"He came over to my place for a bit when that happened. I asked him if he wanted me to have someone teach the guy a lesson, and he passed. It was a silly offer, but you know-- I was young, I thought I knew people who could help." Axel nods. Thea picks up her glass. "You understand why I'm telling you this?"

"You still know people?"

Thea smiles a little and Axel suddenly, sharply, wants to see the rest of her grin. He thinks she could have a _beautiful_ grin if she cut loose.

"I _am_ people."

* * *

#### The rats

Sometimes, Piper stays and falls asleep. He very carefully doesn't do it a lot, and sometimes he goes back to his own room (or gets up and does stuff) before Axel wakes up, but... sometimes.

It's nice. It's warm, and Axel's curled up and not quite tired and playing with his phone (selfie with Piper! browsing. poking Piper just enough to make him stop snoring but not enough to wake him up. Instagram. caaarefully petting Piper's hair. selfie with Piper's glasses! --which, _ow_ ) when he hears something skittering in the hall.

He stops fucking around and eases the blankets back so he can move without them pulling off Pipes and sits up. Doesn't reach for anything yet, puts his phone under the pillow and waits for his eyes to adjust.

The rats are in his doorway. Their eyes glimmer red in the dim light coming in through his window.

Perfectly normal, he tells himself. They won't come into his room. Piper rigged that up.

Piper mutters something in his sleep, and Axel loops an arm across him, props himself up on one elbow and doesn't stop watching the rats.

They leave. It takes longer than he'd like.

* * *

#### Boo

"You did what?" Boo says like she's getting ready to be pissed, and Axel would love to make her happy, but he's honestly just confused.

"Piper and _I_ got in a fight?" he says. He wouldn't have guessed she was the kind to pick at grammar, but he _knows_ she doesn't care much about how he blows off steam.

"Not with each other, Shawna," Piper says from where he's leaning against the wall and holding an ice pack to his nose.

Axel's not sure if he's more annoyed that Boo thought it or that Piper got what she meant so quickly, but Piper's not the one fixing his hand so Piper's the one he glares at. "You didn't need to jump in."

"Well, you didn't need to be in a fight at all, and I've stopped grousing about your terrible choices."

"Oh like hell you--" Boo pops Axel's knuckle back into place with a feeling that's kind of the exact opposite of wrenching a chicken leg out of its socket, and Axel interrupts himself with a yowl and forgets what he was going to say. But that weird _stretched_ pain is gone and he chuckles and grins at Piper and it's hard to tell with the ice pack and all but he thinks Piper's not _not_ smiling back.

That's something, at least, even though when later he's trying to tell Boo that he _wouldn't_ do what she thought she just gives him a look that says she thinks he believes it but she's waiting for him to disappoint her.

* * *

#### Marisse

It's not that the Din is a good place--it's a Keystone greasy-spoon that was _barely_ holding on for the longest time--but it's open at all hours and it's a place Piper likes, so when he comes to find Axel at nearly three in the morning Axel kind of expects they'll end up there.

"You had a good time," Piper says.

"I _did_." Axel sprawls happily into one of the booths. "Really good music, you shoulda come. And fun-- fun people."

Piper's looking him over. "Not to mention lipstick and body glitter, apparently."

Axel blinks at him. "No, but blow jobs 'n sex on acid?"

There's a pause and then Piper says flatly "What."

Axel shoves himself up to sitting, and leans across the table. "I think," he stage-whispers conspiratorially, "one of'm was trying to get me drunk." He cracks up for a minute. "How do you make a body glitter, anyway? I don't know that one."

Piper puts one hand over his face, pushing his glasses up. "Get some coffee, Axel."

"Right, right." Axel looks around to wave Marisse down for a coffee, but she's already walking towards them and she sets the cup down with a clack and she looks _pissed_.

He blinks and looks after her for a minute, then pushes the coffee aside--vague idea that he probably shouldn't drink anything from someone looking that angry--and reaches over and pulls Piper's hand down. Piper jumps a little but that's all, and Axel can't tell if he's doing that smooth-as-glass thing where he doesn't want anyone to know he's upset or if he's just tired, but either way he can't get a read and Marisse thinks there's something to be upset about.

Marisse is probably a _biiiit_ more on the ball than he is, right now.

He giggles at that thought, swallows it back. Focus. "Hey, hey, Pipe-squeak, Pipes-- you okay?"

"Why _would_ you ask." It sounds a little sharp, the way it gets if he's bleeding, and Axel leans forward, runs his other hand through Piper's hair and grins at him. Piper's eyes close a little, like a cat. Not all the way, but a little.

"We're going home, right?" That's the point, he thinks, no matter what he was doing earlier. "You'n'me? We're good?"

"Right," Piper says dryly. But he puts his hand over Axel's for a minute, leaning into the touch before straightening up. Axel can't hear the sharpness anymore, and wonders if he was imagining things. But Marisse doesn't brain him with the carafe when she comes by with another coffee for him, even though he got distracted and hasn't touched the first yet, so it's okay.

* * *

#### Mick

Axel has honestly gotten to the point where he doesn't expect Mick to say anything. It's not that he's as quiet as Roy (no-one is as quiet as Roy). It's that he mostly just says things _back_ when someone else talks, and the things Axel says to him generally don't get more than a grunt in way of response. So when Mick starts the conversation, he's a bit startled.

"Hartley."

"He's around, what about him?"

"Last guy who thought it was funny to screw with him," Mick says, in that voice like someone digging a hole in a gravel pit, "burned."

Axel can hear the click in his own throat as he swallows.

"I wouldn't think that was funny," he says. Sincerely. _Very_ sincerely.

 

### 1 time someone worried about how Hartley was treating Axel

Just kidding. No-one worried about that.

Hartley didn't notice. Axel reminded himself that he didn't care.

**Author's Note:**

> (No, there's no tv!James Jesse. I spelled out the names of the characters in the tags rather than just going with "Flash Rogues" so people wouldn't expect him. I think that this is not exactly the kind of thing he would be concerned with (happy to discuss that), but it's possible to read it as him simply being in IHP again if you prefer.)
> 
> I do love Axel as a character. I also think he's something of a trashfire. I occasionally like to write stories about what that might make people overlook in terms of what he needs and how he's treated.
> 
> This, funnily/sadly enough, is the first thing I've posted this year that I _haven't_ been working on since 2016 in one form or another. I still want to clear out the backlog, but this got into my head and after a kind of long frustrating... time... it felt nice to take a break and work on something quick and relatively light.
> 
> Also, since I've noticed people do this: peppersandcats on tumblr, BTW.


End file.
